Feline immunodeficiency virus is transmitted from cat to cat mainly through bite wounds because the virus is present at high levels in the saliva. Like human AIDS, the virus attacks the body's immune system, making the animal susceptible to diseases and infections that usually would have little effect on an FIV-free animal.
Cats infected with FIV may remain healthy for five to 10 years before symptoms such as diarrhea, weight-loss, fever, swollen lymph nodes and chronic infections appear. Although infected cats may recover from their initial illness, they become lifelong carriers of the virus.
It's estimated that between 2 percent and 25 percent of the global domestic cat population is infected with the virus, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Infection rates are highest in Japan and Australia and lowest in the United States and Europe. Outdoor roaming cats, older cats and cats with chronic ill-health are more likely to be infected. Aggressive free-roaming males, which are most likely to get into fights with other cats, are at greatest risk for contracting FIV.
FIV does not infect or cause disease in humans.
The newly approved vaccine is known as a "killed vaccine," made from an inactivated form of the FIV virus itself. The vaccine stimulates the protective immune response in the animal's body without the danger of inadvertently causing the viral disease. The new vaccine is composed of virus strains from two different types of FIV, one from North America and one from Asia.
In a study demonstrating the efficacy of the vaccine, cats received three doses of the FIV vaccine and a year later were exposed to a different strain of the virus. Sixty-seven percent of the vaccinated cats were protected against the virus, while 74 percent of the
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Contact: Patricia Bailey
pjbailey@ucdavis.edu
530-752-9843
University of California - Davis
22-Mar-2002